Try beer and free laughs at expanded Brew Ha-Ha festival

Headliner David Alan Grier started with a serious stage career, now he mixes funny with family time

David Alan Grier(Photo: Claire Buffie)

If you made a list of the top stand-up comedians, TV-movie-Broadway star David Alan Grier ("Bad Teacher," "In Living Color," "Porgy & Bess") might not make your top 100. But he did for Comedy Central.

"I think I'm like No. 98," said Grier, who headlines the final night of Cincy Brew Ha-Ha Saturday. "I just eased in there. Carrot Top may be ahead of me."

Actually Grier was No. 94 on Comedy Central's 2004 list. He came after Jim Breuer, Louis Anderson and George Wallace 10 years ago – and ahead of Louis CK, Sandra Bernhard, Joey Bishop and Gallagher.

The versatile performer started doing stand-up while studying Shakespeare and appearing in Yale Cabaret sketches at Yale Drama School.

"I went down to New York on a break, and I did open mic nights. I went on at like 2 in the morning. We had to wait in line all night to get three minutes (on stage)," he said.

He got serious about Broadway after earning a master's degree in fine arts from Yale in 1981. He debuted that year on Broadway as Jackie Robinson in "The First," earning a Tony Award nomination, then joined the cast of "Dreamgirls."

His next big break came in the New York production of "A Soldier's Play" with Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. Grier reprised his Corporal Cobb role with Washington in the 1984 film, "A Soldier's Story." The cast included comedian-actor-producer Robert Townsend, who changed Grier's career path.

Keenen cast Grier as a newsman in "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" in 1988. Two years later, he was a principal player on "In Living Color," Wayans' revolutionary Fox comedy.

Grier went on to star in sitcoms called "The Preston Episodes," "Damon" with Damon Wayans, "DAG" with Delta Burke and "Life with Bonnie" with Bonnie Hunt. He produced and starred in Comedy Central's "Chocolate News" satire in 2008, lasted five weeks on "Dancing with the Stars" in 2009, and did CBS' "Bad Teacher" sitcom last spring with Caitlin Kimball, Sara Gilbert and Kristin Davis. You won't see him this fall as Principal Gaines.

"It's what you call canceled," he said.

Grier, who turned 59 in June, comes to Cincinnati from filming a Lifetime Christmas TV movie in Toronto with the En Vogue female R&B group called – wait for it – "An En Vogue Christmas."

He was hardly in the Christmas spirit when we spoke by phone:

"You have to do these in June or July. Yesterday it was 90 degrees!" he said.

"It's a television movie, with lots of Christmas trees and Christmas decorations, and lots of drama. We can't get it together. We hate each other. I play their manager, and I come back and bring everything back together. There's a lot good music. I don't get to sing it, though."

After Brew Ha-Ha, he'll play a dozen stand-up dates through the end of the year – all on weekends so he can be close to his 6-year-old daughter in Los Angeles.

"I love to say I'm doing a tour, but I'm not really. I do gigs. To me, a tour is when you're traveling on a plane with your picture on the tail, and you have lots of Louis Vuitton bags," he said.

"I'm never gone longer than three days. I've tried it the other way, and I really don't like it. I go out and do two or three nights at most. That way I have more time with my daughter at home. That's how I like it. I love being a dad."

Grier talks about fatherhood in his act. What else?

"I've got shocking news for you. Every stand-up is the same. It's about love, relationships, parenthood, politics, my life right now, all that stuff. What makes a stand-up unique is the point of view, the unique take you have," he said.

His comedic point of view is what Grier and his writing partner is pitching in comedy and drama proposals to studios. But it can take three to five years to get a show on the air, if at all, he said.

"I'd love to be able to only do projects that I have a passion for. People think you write a script, or you're sent a script and it just leaps off the page, and you say, 'I have to do this project.' And you wait till the next one. But it doesn't work that way. I do some gigs for the money that allows me to do the things I really want to do. They don't teach you that at Yale Drama School."

"When I heard about 'Porgy & Bess' on Broadway (in 2012), I really wanted to do that," said Grier, who earned a Tony nomination for the show. "The balancing act at the end of the day is being able to feel fulfilled."

He turned down a couple of Broadway plays for next season to stay close to his daughter, he said.

"I don't want to make 88 Skittles commercials. I'll make a couple – unless they would pay me bazillions of dollars," he said with a laugh.

If you go

Cincy Brew Ha-Ha, the annual festival that blends comedy and beer at Sawyer Point, is expanding to three days this year.

When: 5 p.m.-midnight Thursday and Friday, 4 p.m.-midnight Saturday.

Headliners: Josh Sneed on Thursday, The Sklar Brothers on Friday and David Alan Grier on Saturday. The complete comedy schedule has not been announced.

The Beer: More than 25 booths will offer more than 120 beers from brewers as varied as Oskar Blues, New Belgium, Southern Tier and Breckenridge and locals Rivertown, Blank Slate, MadTree, Mt. Carmel and more.

Where: Sawyer Point, Pete Rose Way, Downtown.

Tickets: Admission is free; those wishing to drink alcohol must buy a wristband ($5) each day. Beer samples are $1; full servings are $5.

(Editor's note: Sunday night, organizers announced that due to the death of Robin Williams, Thursday's original Brew Ha-Ha headliner, Bobcat Goldthwait, has canceled all of his appearances to be with the Williams family in California. Cincinnati comedian Josh Sneed will fill in for Goldthwait.)